The Twins had this one lined up early. Three solo homers, a clean 3-0 lead, and Connor Prielipp giving them exactly the kind of start they needed against the A’s. By the end of the night, though, Minnesota was staring at the same ugly finish it has seen too often: a lead gone, a bullpen breakdown, and a 7-4 loss that sent the series to Oakland.
Brooks Lee started the scoring in the first inning by jumping on a fastball at the top of the zone and sending it 105 MPH off the bat for his 21st homer of the season. Minnesota kept swinging in the second.
Trevor Larnach crushed a 3-1 sinker from J.T. Ginn for an 11th homer, a 110-MPH line drive into right field, and Kaelen Culpepper kept his hot stretch rolling with a two-strike blast to left that traveled 428 feet.
That made it 3-0, and Culpepper has been exactly what the Twins hoped for when they called him up early this month.
Prielipp did his part to protect that cushion. The left-hander needed only eight pitches to get through the first inning, worked around a pair of singles in the second, and then retired the side in order in the third.
The A’s finally broke through in the fourth, and a strange bounce helped them do it. Lawrence Butler drew a walk to open the inning, Tommy White hit a hard grounder that took a crazy hop in front of Kody Clemens at second, and what looked like a possible double play instead became a mess.
Clemens couldn’t keep it on the infield, and the A’s ended up with runners at the corners and one out.
Michael Stefanic then lined an RBI double into the left-field corner, Brian Serven added a run on a groundout, and Prielipp escaped with the Twins still ahead. He got through the fifth without damage and returned for the sixth before Jonah Heim singled to end his night after 5 1/3 innings, six hits, three runs, one walk and five strikeouts on 78 pitches, 52 for strikes.
Minnesota did add a fourth run in the sixth. Josh Bell, Ryan Jeffers and Kody Clemens opened the inning with three straight singles to load the bases, and Royce Lewis lifted a sacrifice fly to bring Bell home. That was the last time the Twins scored.
From there, the game slipped away fast. Andrew Morris came in and immediately allowed a fly-ball single to White, then Jeff McNeil doubled down the left-field line to score him.
Morris did get a big strikeout-looking escape when Carlos Cortes swung through a sinker that would have been ball four, but the A’s kept coming. Alika Williams sent a long fly ball to left-center, Luke Keaschall couldn’t get a clean read or close the ground, and the ball dropped for a costly miss that let both runners score.
Darell Hernaiz followed with another two-out RBI single, and suddenly the A’s had a 6-4 lead.
The sixth-inning swing didn’t end the night, either. Kody Funderburk entered in the seventh with one out to face Lawrence Butler, and in a 1-2 count he left a sweeper up. Butler didn’t miss it, launching a solo homer to left-center to make it 7-4.
Minnesota still had one last shot in the ninth against Elvis Alvarado, who had saved Tuesday night’s game for the A’s. Lewis led off with a swinging bunt that Tommy Heim handled for an out, despite Lewis being ahead 2-0 in the count.
Larnach followed with a single up the middle, and Culpepper worked an eight-pitch walk to bring the tying run to the plate. Alan Roden then sent a fly ball to the warning track in center, but it wasn’t deep enough to score either runner.
Both Larnach and Culpepper advanced on the tag, giving Luke Keaschall a chance to keep the game alive. He couldn’t hold up on a slider out of the zone, and that was that.
The Twins leave with two straight losses to the A’s and another late-inning collapse hanging over them.
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Valdez has not exactly given Detroit the ace-level return it hoped for, posting a 4.35 ERA and a 1.41 WHIP through 26 starts while his strikeout and whiff rates have slipped. In that light, Minnesota may have been wise to move on, or at least cautious enough to avoid tying up resources in a pitcher whose recent performance has raised enough questions to make the Twins' pass look more defensible than regrettable. [Read more 🡒]